An organization, or better yet an industry, that could benefit by incorporating alternate ways

of thinking into its policies and practices would be the tech/IT industry. For example, when
principal and founder of EPiC Creative + Design, Dr. Erika Pryor, began attending IT startup,
and tech-related events in 2009, there were only a few women and just a handful of people
of color at any given event (Clark, 2021). It was even noted that often she was the only
woman of color in attendance out of everyone. Because of these types of occurrences, the
tech industry has been called out time and time again for its lack of diversity. The first step of
changing this issue is acknowledging the gender gap and lack of diversity that exists. One
suggestion tech companies could avail of are opportunities such as Sandpiper Ventures, a
seed stage VC fund investing in women and women’s innovation. This Atlantic Canadian
company acknowledges that although women make up 51% of the population, they receive a
meek 2.8% of VC funding worldwide. Partnering with Sandpiper Ventures would provide start
up tech companies the opportunity to incorporate more females into the industry as well as
add more diversity overall. Although much more would need to happen internally within any
operating business such as diversity, inclusion and equality training, policies to protect each
individual and their intersectional identities, as well as policies such as a code of ethics to
ensure expectations and a baseline behaviour towards others is made clear.

Works Cited
Clark, S. (2021, September 23). The Tech Industry's Unconscious Bias Problem. Retrieved from Reworked:
https://www.reworked.co/employee-experience/the-tech-industrys-unconscious-bias-problem/

Meyer, E. (2023, September). When Diversity Meets Feedback. Retrieved from Harvard Business Review:
https://hbr.org/2023/09/when-diversity-meets-feedback

Miles, M. (2022, September 23). BetterUp. Retrieved from Can blind hiring improve your company’s
diversity initiatives?: https://www.betterup.com/blog/blind-hiring

Sandpiper Ventures. (2023). ABOUT. Retrieved from Sandpiper Ventures: https://sandpiper.vc/

Response 1

Hello Shweta,
I was so intrigued by your suggestion of implementing blind recruitment practices as I had crossed the
topic during my research as well and learned some interesting things.

According to BetterUp, anonymizing candidates has positive results for more equitable resume screening,
but alone isn’t strong enough of a program to meaningfully diversify your workforce (Miles, 2022). It may
fix the issues within Cisco, but for most companies the hiring bias stems from how the job ad is posted,
where, etc. This process also doesn’t generate self-awareness for hiring managers or employees moving
forward.
Although I feel it’s a very interesting concept, I do think it still has some evolving to do!

References

Miles, M. (2022, September 23). BetterUp. Retrieved from Can blind hiring improve your company’s
diversity initiatives?: https://www.betterup.com/blog/blind-hiring

Hello Mohammed,
I love the suggestion of feedback loops to incorporate alternate ways of thinking. According
to the Harvard Business Review, diversity within the workplace can result in feedback being
seen as acts of hostility if not delivered properly (Meyer, 2023). Receiving feedback from
people within a wide variety of cultures or countries as what’s considered a constructive way
to offer feedback in one culture is often perceived as destructive in another. If done
consistently and treated as a regular, although important, task feedback loops can be
recognized as an integral part of a job as opposed to being a sign of condescension or
malevolence.
References

Meyer, E. (2023, September). When Diversity Meets Feedback. Retrieved from Harvard Business Review:
https://hbr.org/2023/09/when-diversity-meets-feedback